FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT POSTAL SERVICE - PAGE 4

A U.S. Postal Service police officer who led city officers on a brief chase into Anne Arundel County yesterday was arrested and charged with holding up an auto parts store in Baltimore.Postal Officer Leonard William Bryant, 31, was charged with armed robbery, using a handgun in the commission of a felony, conspiracy to commit robbery and first-degree assault.A Postal Service spokeswoman said disciplinary action is pending.The holdup occurred shortly after 8 a.m., when two men with guns walked into an Advance Auto Parts store in the 2100 block of Patapsco Ave. and threatened a cashier, said Agent Angelique Cook-Hayes, a city police spokeswoman.

The U.S. Postal Service says everyone should have free mail delivery, and in Union Bridge, that could mean erecting mailboxes along a stretch of Main Street.Town officials, however, contend that mailboxes along the street would be impractical, dangerous and unattractive.The prospect of mailboxes crowding narrow sidewalks and postal vehicles causing traffic detours has the Town Council considering an ordinance to bar mailboxes on Main Street."It would be almost impossible to have mailboxes on Main Street," said Mayor Perry L. Jones Jr. "It's not a question of whether [residents]

The U.S. Postal Service last week announced it will stop delivering mail on Saturdays in an effort to curtail losses it has seen in recent years. The changes, set to begin Aug. 5, should save the agency $2 billion annually at a time when the Postal Service lost $15.9 billion in the last fiscal year, according to a statement by Postmaster General Patrick R. Donahoe posted on the agency's website. Congress has stunted attempts to change the delivery process in the past, and this time lawmakers in Washington confronted this decision with opposition as soon as it was announced.

Updated with comments from Harris and Bartlett. In a rare intra-delegation, across-the-aisle nudge, Sen.Barbara A. Mikulskion Tuesday called on the state's two Republican lawmakers in Washington to support a Senate version of an overhaul of theU.S. Postal Servicethat would save a pair of mail sorting facilities that just happen to be located in the lawmakers' districts. The move instantly put Republican Reps. Andy Harris and Roscoe Bartlett on defense, forcing them to either support the bipartisan Senate version of the postal legislation -- which is not popular with Republican House leaders -- or acknowledge that the Postal Service must be allowed to trim costs and close plants, even if the cuts are made in their own districts.

If you need to pack up your hippopotamus, the U.S. government is here to help. Don't forget, says Uncle Sam, soothing hippo music and a 1-pound sedative.The U.S. Postal Service Web site at www.usps.com includes a section of earnest, useful hints on packing and moving various items you might have around the house.But right there between Glasses and Teacups ("Put a layer of peanuts or newsprint on the bottom of the box") and Kids' Stuff ("Have your kids seal the boxes and write their names or put their favorite stickers on each box")

Federal postal investigators say that when mail employee Andrew Walsh saw a greeting card, he saw an opportunity. The 51-year-old night-shift supervisor at the U.S. Postal Service processing and distribution center in Baltimore has been charged with theft of mail after Walsh was seen during covert surveillance opening greeting cards at a conveyor belt, according to authorities. A search of his vehicle recovered about 450 gift cards. Federal prosecutors said the investigation was launched after officials received reports that more than 1,200 greeting cards were rifled through over the past three months.

After 10 years, a tiny post office in Lutherville -- a friendly gathering spot for scores of residents -- has closed, leaving its customers without a nearby branch.All because of a mailbox.Lucy Smith, an independent contractor who operated the satellite branch at Ridgely Road and Kurtz Avenue for the U.S. Postal Service, wanted to have a regulation blue box on the property moved closer to her office for safety reasons.But M. L. Jain, owner of the professional building where the post office was located, refused.

A U.S. Postal Service police officer, who led city officers on a brief chase into Anne Arundel County yesterday, was arrested and charged with holding up an auto parts store in Baltimore.Postal Officer Leonard William Bryant, 31, was charged with armed robbery, using a handgun in the commission of a felony, conspiracy to commit robbery, and first-degree assault.A Postal Service spokeswoman said disciplinary action is pending.The holdup occurred shortly after 8 a.m., when two men armed with guns walked into an Advance Auto Parts store in the 2100 block of Patapsco Ave. and threatened a cashier, said Agent Angelique Cook-Hayes, a city police spokeswoman.

The U.S. Postal Service likely will build a Hampstead post office more than a mile from the business district, a move the Carroll County mayor criticized yesterday as a "major mistake" and "hypocritical." Mayor Christopher M. Nevin charged that postal officials "were paying nothing more than lip service" when they agreed in June to consider locating a post office in the downtown business district at the old Hampstead Elementary School. Nevin said John Turpin, a postal service spokesman, told him Tuesday the "preferred site was the one on Route 30 near Lizzie's Lockers," near the town's northern border with Greenmount.